I don't think they have too many games. Everyone thinks that any resources spent on anything other than what they love is a waste of Workshop's efforts. Whereas the correct answer if anything other than the old world is a waste of time. I want High Elves ha ha.

Not even being able to take an online order (with an accurately projected delivery date) is pretty pathetic. Just saying 'Out of stock" is crazy from a business perspective.

Rephrased - do they not have enough production to prevent gouging on their main games? Then yes, too many games

Well, they since apparently they can’t keep product in stock for their “Big Two” games, let alone the smaller lines like Kill Team and Warcry, as well as specialist games. The problem goes far beyond simply having too many product lines to manage. As a former production&inventory management guy, I’d be willing to bet that one of their biggest problems is coordinating the in-house model production with the paper products that are outsourced to China. In one of the companies I worked for, we’d have major stock-outs on certain products because we had all the components on hand but were waiting for the packaging pieces to show up from overseas.

I think they really need to scale back, so many games, so many miniatures, and you were just looking at the manufacturing/stock side of things. Each of those games and miniatures needs to go through design (not just from a model point of view but also rules), production of collateral - in theory testing (but I have my doubts) and then later revisions, and they're doing all of this with small teams. Then as you say, bring in release window collisions and you can quickly run into chaos. It's interesting you mentioned the 2nd factory as I recall hearing they attempted an earlier expansion which pretty much knocked out the Nottingham power grid - not sure whether this is apocryphal but it goes to show the scale they need to expand to to take into account what they're currentlly producing. Finally, yes, the Forgeworld e-commerce infrastructure being separate from GW was insane, really put me off buying anything.

I'm glad I built my High Elf army in 2018 when most of the kits were still available, but I would REALLY love to be able to expand it. I've also made some changes going from 6th ed to ToW I've made some changes and need more Sea Guard, but refuse to pay ebay prices, so I'll just be pretending my archers have armor and spears for the next couple years. I've heard rumors that HE are last on the list of releases, so I suspect it'll be some time before they come out

Great topic and very reasoned in your comments. I wonder if GW was concerned about which financial year to take the hit on the balance sheet of setting up a new facility. Along with if a lot of the problems are caused by operating a number of projects in isolation from each other with no shared production and support infrastructure requirement plan in place.

I wonder if GW could consider working out what volume of an out of stock item would need to reach to warrant making space for it in the schedule over a specific timeframe. The website could then indicate how many more orders would be needed to trigger this. Customers could then make a more informed choice/have some agency whilst GW would be able to prioritise in-demand items. Not perfect (as some customers might be placing an order hoping others follow suite so they don’t have to wait for ages) and plenty of detail to work through (such as when payment is taken) but something along these lines might help not just now but even when the new factory gets up and running.

No they are just too expensive

Uncle Atom's recent video on Mordheim got me thinking that in a perfect world GW would keep the Old World miniature agnostic (i.e. similarly to how Kill Team started -- just grab your old WFB models and/or AoS ones, put them on square adapters and go at it) and release the rules for all armies Day 1 with Arcane Journals published on a bi-monthly basis for all the factions, rather than arbitrarily limiting support to just nine armies. Seeing how Old World got sidelined in order to make space for AoS 4.0 and hearing how there's some odd internal tug-of-war between the different design teams and sharing resources, it makes for a rather sorry start to what otherwise has been lauded as a great ruleset that combines the best aspects of the previous editions. I know that GW makes their buck selling miniatures, but they put the Old World in a strange spot, where a) legendary faction players feel alienated and discouraged to invest time and money into the game since their armies aren't officially supported, b) players of the upcoming core facfions get next to no news about when to expect releases for their armies and are left to their own devices (I.e. 3d print or spend a fortune on ebay), c) the players of the three already released armies are either waiting for restocks unable to complete their armies or are getting tired of playing against each other and/or not finding new players to roll dice with due to points a) and b).

At least the delay gives us time to paint and also gives my Wallet time to recover, the stock issues do need to be fixed though

Happy to forgive the delays if they just communicated a bit better. V frustrating not knowing when we will see dwarves. The longer it goes the more i spend on ebay.

They probably don't have too many games, but it does seem like it some days especially the way that they struggle to keep stock available for the full range of each game. Nearly every game and faction have something available to buy but not the full range. Many times, it is the best value or most popular items that aren't available which further adds to the idea that nothing is in stock. The Kingdom of Bretonnia range you brought up was a good example as the best value army box isn't available yet the split-up versions at "considerably" higher prices are. Another added complexity is that some countries version of the webstore doesn't have an item, but others will and that is likely due to local warehouse stock issues which further adds to the frustration. Sadly, like many things in life where stock can get taken up by 3rd parties (quasi scalpers) they will then resell at higher than RRP because they know that people need these items to complete their armies. I actually don't have anything against people who buy bigger boxes and then on sell the parts they didn't want and even the people who run that process commercially provided the prices don't fall into the scalping territory. Obviously supply and demand determines something's worth but there is a distinct zone in there where people can be taken advantage of.

The issue with specialist games is I suspect they just don’t know the demand up front. The same thing happened with all the games going back to bloodbowl, necromunda, and At, with AT being hit very badly. Also, the main issue now seems to be they are stock building AoS new version. So use Specalist Games guys can blame AoS player 😜

Workshop were really burned badly after the bubble of LotR burst in the 2000s. They are probably worried about expanding big investments like manufacturing capacity. But they keep bringing new things out, and demand seems high, even after the bounce during covid. Maybe the bounce has stuck so they are gaining confidence.

For their current production and logistical capabilities, yes. Hopefully the new factory they're about to build should sort this.

I think the issue of "capacity", I believe that's not production capacity but that GW has the physical capacity for additional production lines to be built. As to transparency, that brings is own set of complaints. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Finally, to the base topic, yes they do. I cannot believe that GW profits from the 2 "Epic" scale games. I get Underworlds as it's sold in entirely different channels than just traditional local game stores. Here in the States, it's sold in Barnes and Noble (chain bookstores) and Target. Not your traditional avenues of Tabletop war games. I think they could slim down Specialist Games but most, like Blood Bowl sell well and the community for BB is the most active of all GW games.

So many games and still waiting on battlefleet gothic rerelease 😢. Long delays doesn’t bother me too much but better communication would be nice.

I keep getting sucked into playing all of them and not enough time to do so

Yes , if you are starting up it's too confusing . The website isn't very user friendly either I find Also way too expensive as well .

They all do don't they? Games workshop, Warlord, Mantic... they all have more games than you can shake a stick at 😂, but there is such a colossal difference in how they are presented and marketed. I don't know if it is healthy for the hobby or not though, and I think you cover the topic well but it surely can't be easy for companies to keep on top of everything when they have 8+ games each with 10+ factions/armies. I love AoS, but we're almost on the 4th iteration of the game and the Cities of Sigmar have only just had a model update. Is that because they are less played than other armies, or is it because they have too much going on and can't keep up? I still think Warlord do it best. We've had 8 solid years of Bolt Action 2.0 - great models and well fleshed out armies. I've enjoyed every minute of it and having a third around the corner is just so exciting. But, in that time GW will have done 4 versions of AoS and 4 versions of 40K 😵 Too many games or not, I just wish GW would allow us to grow into their games a little more and give us time to enjoy them. That's their biggest problem - chasing them dollar signs!

I have little sympathy with GW re their release schedules. They own the Intellectual Property and Supply Chain for all their games; they get to choose their release schedule. Currently it seems that everything in demand sells out within minutes for most game systems, that’s rubbish planning for a product that is not a life-essential item to any of its customers. How long would you frequent a Resturant if every time you went most of the menu was unavailable? I get that hiccups happen but this is now expected with every release and proven with every release. They clearly have a release schedule that they cannot support which impacts the games they’ve already sold to customers. I have now disengaged from the Saturday 10AM new releases for ToW, Kill Team, Warcry, MESBG and Necromunda. GW have trained me in to believing that they will not be able to deliver on their own hype so I know wait and buy on the secondary non-scalper market places. I will wait for Skaven AoS. I’m planning to get them next year.

GW lost my money for the last 2 years because they didnt let me buy 3 of their extremely limited box sets.. I am Especially angry for Inquisition vs Cultists for Kill Team set and Kt boxes in general. Ive transferred funds into Warlord Epics and did not looked back. I will give them a chance with new Necromunda box soon, but if they fail again, funds will go towards Punic epics. Sure i can buy most of the stuff later.. but I am just angry for being unable to get what i want WHEN I want it. They kind of lost me as a customer because of bad business decisions.

They only really need old world now

Looking at it from their pov, no. Their escalating profits suggest otherwise. From the customers pov, maybe but then again no one is making us buy any of it. I’ve consciously stepped away from GW games, except for Legions Imperialis and Warmaster.

The reason why I don't buy Games Workshop is because they change too often. I'd like to play 40K Steel Legion but they don't sell it any more. Warhammer fantasy stopped and they restarted as the old world. I don't like the inconsistency. And when you're used to Warlord Games, GW is quite expensive.

They just announced a new factory's just being worked on, so it's obviously a problem they've seen & are working on sorting out

All other concepts and ideas aside, and for the love of all that is good....please GW just release the Dwarfs lol

I'd argue they dont have enough workshop.

There's not too many games... there's too many releases! (which isn't the same) For example, everyone kinda agree that releasing a 4th edition for AoS is kind of a mistake, and the low cycle of release for TOW is sure embarassing, but at least that's humanly suitable for customers. If they won't just invest in pointless "new edition" or "armies supplements" instead of just following the basic cycle, everyone would be happy and I bet sales figures won't take a dive, since less noise = more focus on unseen/forgotten releases that are drowned into it and sell badly.

They don't have "too many" games, they have "too little" manufacturing capacity/bandwidth to support the games they have.

They’re just expensive and there’s too many of it

As old world is back. Maybe it's time to end AOS.

Well if you are correct then having too many games would lead to them cutting some. One of the games they would likely cut would be the old world. From a consumer point of view at least me personally I would rather wait for the releases of the old world and have nothing at all. I dont think too many games is the reason for the issue but other factors mainly its a own sucess. During lockdown sales increased by 35% across the ranges and it has not gone down. Even more of a shock with economic down turn and high prices for gas and food last year sales increased 12% again for GW. The growth in sales is beyond what anyone could have expected typically 5-7% growth is amazing. I could explain how economic factors with China, overseas shipping and pretty boring stuff is also causing delays and knock on effects. The reality is that from design to shipping goods is about a 2 year process. Doing that across a weekly release schedule 12 months a year is a lot of plate spinning. It is 100% normal that projects take longer than expected, they get delayed, machines breakdown, you have problems in the printed books that need to be re-done. Nothing in any business runs to the original plan. When you say reasonable ? Releasing new products every week of the year is not reasonable for any company it is amazing GW keep it up. If you look at other companies your luckly to get a new release every 3 months. I dont think we really understand how unique it is for a company to do what GW is doing.